America

Germany expels CIA station chief in anger at espionage

... Excerpt

10 July, 2014

Berlin (dpa) - Germany is expelling the chief US intelligence official in Berlin, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Thursday as anger mounted at two suspected cases of US espionage in the past week.


It was an act of diplomatic hostility unprecedented in the seven decades that the two nations have been the closest of allies.


Minutes earlier, Chancellor Angela Merkel had scolded Washington for wasting its effort by spying on an ally instead of dealing with the real threats of the 21st century.


Sources said Berlin was likely to urge the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "resident" to leave, but without going through the steps of declaring him persona non grata, the formal, diplomatic method of expulsion.


Since World War II, Germany has never taken such a step against a US diplomat.


The CIA resident is an official who operates under cover of a diplomatic title at the US embassy in Berlin and is known to German officials as their liaison on secret intelligence matters.


Germany last week arrested a staffer of its own BND intelligence service who reportedly confessed he sold 218 documents to a US handler. This week, police searched the Defence Ministry in Berlin over allegations that a policy adviser there was meeting US agents.


Speaking after talks with visiting Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leanca at her office, Merkel did not mention the United States by name, but accused it of lacking focus on "the essential challenges of the 21st century."





"If what is being suggested turns out to correspond to fact, then I have to say that as a matter of common sense, spying on allies is a waste of energy. We have so many problems and should concentrate on the essentials," she said.


"We have to ask what the task of (intelligence) services in the 21st century is. We have completely new threats," the chancellor added, citing the war in Syria and the rise of Islamic extremists who have declared a caliphate in northern Iraq.


Merkel said allies spying on Germany "cannot see the wood for the trees."


Separatey, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the spying scandal had not compromised any essential German secrets.


"If it‘s no more than we know so far, the information yielded from this suspected espionage is risible," he said. "On the other hand, the political damage is disproportionately serious."